THE ORDEAL OF FIRE.
The ordeal of fire, administered directly, without the intervention
either of water or of iron, is one of the most ancient forms, as is
shown by the allusions to it in both the Hindu Vedic writings, the
adventure of Siawush, and the passage in the Antigone of Sophocles (pp.
266, 267, 270). In this, its simplest form, it may be considered the
origin of the proverbial expression, “J’en mettrois la main au feu,”
as an affirmation of positive belief,[966] showing how thoroughly
the whole system engrained itself in the popular mind. In India, as
practised in modern times, its form approaches somewhat the ordeal
of the burning ploughshares. A trench is dug nine hands in length,
two spans in breadth, and one span in depth. This is filled with
peepul wood, which is then set on fire, and the accused walks into it
with bare feet.[967] A more humane modification is described in the
seventh century by Hiouen-Thsang as in use when the accused was too
tender to undergo the trial by red-hot iron. He simply cast into the
flames certain flower-buds, when, if they opened their leaves, he was
acquitted; if they were burnt up, he was condemned.[968]
An anticipation of the fire ordeal may be found in the Rabbinical
story of Abraham when he was cast into a fiery furnace by Nimrod, for
reproving the idolatry of the latter, and escaped unharmed from the
flames;[969] as well as the similar experience of Shadrach, Mesach, and
Abednego, when they were saved from the wrath of Nebuchadnezzar.[970]
Miraculous interposition of this kind was expected as a matter of
course by the early Christians. About the year 400 Rufinus, in his
account of his visit to the monks of the Nitrian desert, tells an
adventure of the hermit Copres as related to him by that holy man
himself. On visiting a neighboring city he engaged in a disputation
with a Manichæan who was perverting the people. Finding the heretic not
easily overcome by argument, he proposed that a fire should be built
in the public square, into which both should enter. The populace was
delighted with the idea and speedily had a roaring pyre ready, when
the Manichæan insisted that the Christian should enter first. Copres
assented and remained unhurt in the flames for half an hour; his
antagonist still held back, when the crowd seized him and tossed him
into the fire, where he was severely scorched, and was ejected with
disgrace from the city.[971] Almost identical is the story related in
597 A. D., under the Emperor Anastasius, of a Catholic bishop, who,
after being worsted in a theological dispute by the subtle logic of
an Arian, offered to test the soundness of their respective doctrines
by together entering a blazing fire. The prudent Arian declined the
proposition, when the enthusiastic Catholic jumped into the burning
pile, and thence continued the controversy without suffering the least
inconvenience.[972] In the less impressive form of filling the lap
with burning coals and carrying them uninjured till they grew cold
this ordeal seems to have been a favorite with holy men accused of
unchastity. It is related of St. Brice, the successor of St. Martin in
the see of Tours, of St. Simplicius of Autun, and of Montano bishop of
Toledo in the sixth century.[973]
The earliest legal allusion to this form of ordeal in Europe occurs
in the code of the Ripuarian Franks, where it is prescribed as
applicable to slaves and strangers, in some cases of doubt.[974]
From the phraseology of these passages, we may conclude that it was
then administered by placing the hand of the accused in a fire. As
a legal ordeal this is perhaps the only allusion to it in European
jurisprudence, but it was repeatedly resorted to by enthusiasts
as a voluntary trial for the purpose of establishing the truth of
accusations or of substantiating their position. In these cases it
was conducted on a larger and more impressive scale; huge pyres were
built, and the individual undergoing the trial literally walked through
the flames, as Siawush did. The celebrated Petrus Igneus gained his
surname and reputation by an exploit of this kind, which was renowned
in its day. Pietro di Pavia, Bishop of Florence, unpopular with the
citizens, but protected by Godfrey, Duke of Tuscany, was accused of
simony and heresy. Being acquitted by the Council of Rome, in 1063,
and the offer of his accusers to prove his guilt by the ordeal of
fire being refused, he endeavored to put down his adversaries by
tyranny and oppression. Great disturbances resulted, and at length,
in 1067, the monks of Vallombrosa, who had borne a leading part in
denouncing the bishop, and who had suffered severely in consequence
(the episcopal troops having burned the monastery of St. Salvio and
slaughtered the cenobites), resolved to decide the question by the
ordeal, incited thereto by no less than three thousand enthusiastic
Florentines who assembled there for the purpose. Pietro Aldobrandini,
a monk of Vallombrosa, urged by his superior, the holy S. Giovanni
Gualberto, offered himself to undergo the trial. After imposing
religious ceremonies, he walked slowly between two piles of blazing
wood, ten feet long, five feet wide, and four and a half feet high,
the passage between them being six feet wide and covered with an inch
or two of glowing coals. The violence of the flames agitated his dress
and hair, but he emerged without hurt, even the hair on his legs being
unsinged, barelegged and barefooted though he was. Desiring to return
through the pyre, he was prevented by the admiring crowd, who rushed
around him in triumph, kissing his feet and garments, and endangering
his life in their transports, until he was rescued by his fellow monks.
A formal statement of the facts was sent to Rome by the Florentines,
the papal court gave way, and the bishop was deposed; while the monk
who had given so striking a proof of his steadfast faith was marked for
promotion, and eventually died Cardinal of Albano.[975]
An example of a similar nature occurred in Milan in 1103, when
the Archbishop Grossolano was accused of simony by a priest named
Liutprand, who, having no proof to sustain his charge, offered the
ordeal of fire. All the money he could raise he expended in procuring
fuel, and when all was ready the partisans of the archbishop attacked
the preparations and carried off the wood. The populace, deprived of
the promised exhibition, grew turbulent, and Grossolano was obliged
not only to assent to the trial, but to join the authorities in
providing the necessary materials. In the Piazza di S. Ambrogio two
piles were accordingly built, each ten cubits long, by four cubits in
height and width, with a gangway between them of a cubit and a half.
As the undaunted priest entered the blazing mass, the flames divided
before him and closed as he passed, allowing him to emerge in safety,
although with two slight injuries, one a burn on the hand, received
while sprinkling the fire before entering, the other on the foot,
which he attributed to a kick from a horse in the crowd that awaited
his exit. The evidence was accepted as conclusive by the people, and
Grossolano was obliged to retire to Rome. Pascal II., however, received
him graciously, and the Milanese suffragans disapproved of the summary
conviction of their metropolitan, to which they were probably all
equally liable. The injuries received by Liutprand were exaggerated, a
tumult was excited in Milan, the priest was obliged to seek safety in
flight, and Grossolano was restored for a time, but the adverse party
prevailed and in spite of papal support he was forced to exile.[976]
A volunteer miracle of somewhat the same character, which is recorded
as occurring in Paris early in the thirteenth century, may be alluded
to as illustrating the belief of the period. A loose woman in the
household of a great noble was luring the youthful retainers to sin,
when the chaplain remonstrated with his master, and threatened to
depart unless she was removed. When she was taxed with her guilt she
defended herself by saying that the priest had accused her because she
had refused his importunities, and offered to prove it. Approaching him
as a penitent, she sought to seduce his virtue, finally threatening to
kill herself unless he would gratify her despairing love, until, to
prevent her suicide, he finally made an appointment with her. Secretly
announcing her triumph to the noble, she went to the place of meeting,
where she found the chaplain mounted on a bed of plank, surrounded by
straw and dry wood, to which he set fire on her appearance, and invited
her to join him. Covered by the flames, the sinless man felt nothing
but a cool, refreshing breeze, and when the pile had burnt out, he
emerged unhurt, even his garments and hair being untouched.[977]
But the experiment was not always so successful for the rash
enthusiast. In 1098, during the first crusade, after the capture of
Antioch, when the Christians were in turn besieged in that city, and,
sorely pressed and famine-struck, were well-nigh reduced to despair,
an ignorant peasant named Peter Bartholomew, a follower of Raymond of
Toulouse, announced a series of visions in which St. Andrew and the
Saviour had revealed to him that the lance which pierced the side of
Christ lay hidden in the church of St. Peter. After several men had
dug in the spot indicated, from morning until night, without success,
Peter leaped into the trench, and by a few well-directed strokes of
his mattock exhumed the priceless relic, which he presented to Count
Raymond. Cheered by this, and by various other manifestations of Divine
assistance, the Christians gained heart, and defeated the Infidels with
immense slaughter. Peter became a man of mark, and had fresh visions
on all important conjunctures. Amid the jealousies and dissensions
which raged among the Frankish chiefs, the possession of the holy
lance vastly increased Raymond’s importance, and rival princes were
found to assert that it was merely a rusty Arab weapon, hidden for the
occasion, and wholly undeserving the veneration of which it was the
object. At length, after some months, during the leisure of the siege
of Archas, the principal ecclesiastics in the camp investigated the
matter, and Peter, to silence the doubts expressed as to his veracity,
offered to vindicate the identity of the relic by the fiery ordeal. He
was taken at his word, and after three days allowed for fasting and
prayer, a pile of dry olive-branches was made, fourteen feet long and
four feet high, with a passage-way one foot wide. In the presence of
forty thousand men all eagerly awaiting the result, Peter, bearing the
object in dispute, and clothed only in a tunic, boldly rushed through
the flames, amid the anxious prayers and adjurations of the multitude.
As the chroniclers lean to the side of the Neapolitan Princes or of the
Count of Toulouse, so do their accounts of the event differ; the former
asserting that Peter sustained mortal injury in the fire; the latter
assuring us that he emerged safely, with but one or two slight burns,
and that the crowd enthusiastically pressing around him in triumph,
he was thrown down, trampled on, and injured so severely that he died
in a few days, asseverating with his latest breath the truth of his
revelations. Raymond persisted in upholding the sanctity of his relic,
but it was subsequently lost.[978]
Even after the efforts of Innocent III. to abolish the ordeal, and
while the canons of the Council of Lateran were still fresh, St.
Francis of Assisi, in 1219, offered himself to the flames for the
propagation of the faith. In his missionary trip to the East, finding
the Soldan deaf to his proselyting eloquence, he proposed to test
the truth of their respective religions by entering a blazing pile
in company with some imams, who naturally declined the perilous
experiment. Nothing daunted, the enthusiastic saint then said that he
would traverse the flames alone if the Soldan would bind himself, in
the event of a triumphant result, to embrace the Christian religion
and to force his subjects to follow the example. The Turk, more wary
than the Dane whom Poppo converted, declined the proposition, and St.
Francis returned from his useless voyage unharmed.[979]
In this St. Francis endeavored unsuccessfully to emulate the glorious
achievement of Boniface, the Apostle of Russia, who, according to the
current martyrologies, converted the King of Russia to the true faith
by means of such a bargain and ordeal.[980] It is a little curious that
Peter Cantor, in his diatribe against the judgment of God, presents
the supposition of a trial such as this as an unanswerable argument
against the system—the Church, he says, could not assent to such an
experiment, and therefore it ought not to be trusted in affairs of less
magnitude.[981]
Somewhat irregular as a judicial proceeding, but yet illustrating
the general belief in the principles of the ordeal of fire, was an
occurrence related about the year 1220 by Cæsarius of Heisterbach as
having taken place a few years before in Arras. An ecclesiastic of good
repute decoyed a goldsmith into his house, and murdered him to obtain
possession of some valuables, cutting up the body, with the assistance
of a younger sister, and hiding the members in a drain. The crime was
proved upon them, and both were condemned to the stake. On the way to
the place of punishment, the girl demanded a confessor, and confessed
her sins with full contrition, but the brother was obdurate and
impenitent. Both were tied to the same stake; the brother was promptly
reduced to ashes, while the flames were deliciously cool to the sister,
and only burnt the rope with which she was tied, so that she quietly
walked down from the pile. The judges, thus convinced of her innocence,
dismissed her without further trouble.[982]
From every point of view, however, both as to date and as to
consequences, the most remarkable recourse to the fire ordeal was
that which proved to be the proximate cause of the downfall of
Savonarola. Long after the ordeal system had been superseded in
European jurisprudence, and occurring in the centre of the New
Learning, it was a most noteworthy illustration of the superstition
which formed a common bond between sceptics and religious enthusiasts.
In 1498 Savonarola had been silenced by command of Alexander III.,
his influence with the people was waning, and his faithful follower
Fra Domenico da Pescia was desperately struggling in the pulpit to
maintain the cause against the assaults of the Franciscans led by the
eloquent Fra Francesco della Puglia. Domenico in a sermon offered to
prove the truth of his leader’s utterances by throwing himself from
the roof of the Palazzo de’ Signori, by casting himself in the river,
or by entering fire. This burst of rhetoric might have passed unheeded
had not Fra Francesco taken it up and offered to share the ordeal
with Savonarola himself. Savonarola declined, except under impossible
conditions, but Domenico accepted the challenge and affixed to the
portal of Santa Croce a paper in which he offered to prove by argument
or miracle the truth of sundry propositions bearing upon his teacher’s
mission. To this Fra Francesco replied that he would enter fire with
Fra Domenico; that he fully expected to be burnt, but that he would
willingly suffer if he could disabuse the people of their false idol.
Popular excitement rose to such a height that the Signoria sent for
both disputants, and made them sign a written agreement to undergo
the ordeal. In this Fra Francesco wisely provided that, although he
was willing to enter fire with Savonarola himself, if Domenico was to
act he would only produce a champion, who was readily found in the
person of Fra Giuliano Rondinelli. On the side of the Dominicans the
enthusiasm was so great that all the friars of Savonarola’s convent of
San Marco, nearly three hundred in number, eagerly signed a pledge to
submit to the ordeal, and he assured them that in such a cause they
could do so without danger. In fact, when, on the day before the trial,
he preached on the subject in San Marco, the whole audience rose as
one man and offered to take Domenico’s place.
April 7th was the day fixed for the _Sperimento del Fuoco_. In the
Piazza de’ Signori a huge pile of wood, plentifully reinforced with
gunpowder, sulphur, oil, and spirits, was built with a gangway through
which the champions were to pass; it was to be lighted at one end,
and after they entered fire was to be set at the other to preclude
retreat. All Florence assembled to witness the spectacle, and patiently
endured the peltings of a terrible storm. The day was spent, however,
in wrangling over questions skilfully raised by the Franciscans,
the chief one being whether Fra Domenico should carry in his hand a
consecrated host. It had been revealed to one of his brethren that this
was indispensable, and Savonarola adhered to it firmly. When evening
came the Signoria announced that the ordeal was abandoned. The crowd
was enraged at the loss of the promised exhibition; the Dominicans had
so confidently promised a miracle that the drawn battle was universally
regarded as their defeat, an armed guard was required to protect their
return to their convent, and Savonarola’s power over the Florentine
populace was gone. His enemies lost no time in pushing their advantage.
The next evening the mob assailed San Marco; he was seized and conveyed
to prison, and after prolonged and repeated tortures he was hanged and
burnt on May 23d.[983]
It will be observed that the ordeal of fire was principally affected
by ecclesiastics in church affairs, perhaps because it was of a nature
to produce a powerful impression on the spectators, while at the same
time it could no doubt in many instances be so managed as to secure
the desired results by those who controlled the details. In like
manner, it was occasionally employed on inanimate matter to decide
points of faith or polity. Thus, in the question which excited great
commotion in Spain, in 1077, as to the substitution of the Roman for
the Gothic or Mozarabic rite, after a judicial combat had been fought
and determined in favor of the national ritual, the partisans of the
Roman offices continued to urge their cause, and the ordeal of fire
was appealed to. A missal of each kind was committed to the flames,
and, to the great joy of all patriotic Castilians, the Gothic offices
were unconsumed.[984] More satisfactory to the orthodox was the result
of a similar ordeal during the efforts of St. Dominic to convert the
Albigenses. In a dispute with some heretics he wrote out his argument
on the points of faith, and gave it to them for examination and
reply. That night, as they were seated around the hearth, the paper
was produced and read, when one of them proposed that it should be
cast into the flames, when, if it remained unconsumed, they would see
that its contents were true. This was promptly done, when the saintly
document was unharmed. One, more obstinate than the rest, asked for a
second and then for a third trial, with the same result. The perverse
heretics, however, closed their hearts against the truth, and bound
themselves by oath to keep the affair secret; and so glorious a
victory for the true faith would have remained unknown but for the
indiscretion of one of them, a knight, who had a covert inclination
towards orthodoxy.[985] A somewhat similar instance occurred in
Constantinople as late as the close of the thirteenth century, when
Andronicus II., on his accession, found the city torn into factions
relative to the patriarchate, arising from the expulsion of Arsenius,
a former patriarch. All attempts to soothe the dissensions proving
vain, at length both parties agreed to write out their respective
statements and arguments, and, committing both books to the flames,
to abide by the result, each side hoping that its manuscript would be
preserved by the special interposition of Heaven. The ceremony was
conducted with imposing state, and, to the general surprise, both books
were reduced to ashes. Singularly enough, all parties united in the
sensible conclusion that God had thereby commanded them to forget their
differences and to live in peace.[986]
About the same period as this last example, Samaritan tradition related
that the comparative claims of Mt. Gerizim and Al-Qods (Jerusalem) as
the sole seats of Yahveh-worship were settled before Nebuchadnezzar,
by the ordeal of fire, applied respectively to the Pentateuch and to
the later books of the Jewish canon, Sanballat appearing for Ephraim,
and Zerubbabel for Judah. The later books were promptly consumed, but
the law of Moses emerged twice from the flames unhurt. Zerubbabel, in
despair, then spat upon some pages of the index, and cast the Law a
third time into the fire, when the leaves thus polluted were burnt,
but the book itself leaped unscathed into the bosom of the king, who
promptly slew the representatives of Judah, and gave an unhesitating
verdict in favor of the Samaritans.[987]
The genuineness of relics was often tested in this manner by exposing
them to the action of fire. This custom, like the ordeal itself as
a judicial process, finds its original home in the East. When, for
instance, the sacred tooth-relic of Buddha was carried to the court
of King Pandu at Patali-putta, and its holiness was questioned by the
Niganthas, or worshippers of Siva, they tested it by casting it into
a pit filled with glowing charcoal “bright and horrid as the hell
Roruva”—when the tooth, in place of being consumed to ashes, rose out
of the fiery mass resting on a lotus the size of a chariot-wheel.[988]
Even Roman unbelief accepted a similar faith respecting the superfluous
thumb which ornamented the right foot of King Pyrrhus, the touch of
which cured diseases of the spleen, and which remained unharmed
on the funeral pyre which consumed the rest of his body to ashes.
The indestructible supplementary member was thereupon inclosed in a
casket, and reverently placed in a temple—the first relic, probably,
on record in the western world.[989] At how early an age Christianity
adopted the belief which led to this is manifested by the story of the
swaddling-cloth of Christ in one of the apocryphal Gospels. The Virgin,
being unable, on account of poverty, to make a return for the offerings
of the Magi who came to worship the infant Saviour, presented them
with one of his swaddling-bands. On their return they placed it in the
sacred fire of their altar, and though the flames eagerly embraced it,
they left it unharmed and unaltered, whereupon the Magi venerated it,
and laid it away among their treasures.[990] On the conversion of the
Spanish Arians the experiment was tried on a larger scale. It seems
that doubts were felt by the orthodox as to the relics preserved in
their churches, and a general regulation was adopted by the Council of
Saragossa in 592 that they should be all brought before the bishops and
tested by fire—with what result is not recorded.[991]
In such cases the ceremony of the ordeal was conducted with appropriate
religious services, including the following prayer, which would seem
to show that in its regular form it was not the relic itself, but the
cloth in which it was wrapped that was exposed to the test—
Lord Jesus Christ, who art king of kings and lord of lords, and lover
of all believers in thee, who art a just judge, strong and powerful,
who hast revealed thy holy mysteries to thy priests, and who didst
mitigate the flames to the Three Children; concede to us thy unworthy
servants and grant our prayers that this cloth or this thread in which
are wrapped those bodies of saints, if they are not genuine let them
be burned by this fire, and if they are genuine let them escape, so
that iniquity shall not prevail over injustice but falsehood shall
succumb to truth, so that thy truth shall be declared to thee and be
manifested to us, believers in thee, that we may know thee to be the
blessed God in ages everlasting. Amen.[992]
Numerous instances of this superiority of relics to fire are narrated
by the pious chroniclers of the middle ages. In 1015 some monastic
pilgrims, hospitably received at Monte Cassino on their return from
Jerusalem, offered at the shrine of St. Benedict a fragment of the
towel with which the Saviour had washed the feet of his disciples.
Some of the monks, being incredulous, placed it on burning coals, when
it turned fiery red, but, on being removed, returned to its original
color, and all doubts as to its authenticity were dispelled.[993]
When, in 1065, the pious Egelwin, Bishop of Durham, miraculously
discovered the relics of the holy martyr King Oswyn, he gave the hair
to Judith, wife of Tosti, Earl of Northumberland, and she with all
reverence placed it on a raging fire, whence it was withdrawn, not
only uninjured, but marvellously increased in lustre, to the great
edification of all beholders.[994] A similar miracle attested the
sanctity of King Olaf the Saint, of Norway, when his hair was laid on
a pan of live coals, consecrated by Bishop Grimkel, to satisfy the
incredulity of Queen Alfifa.[995] Guibert de Nogent likewise relates
that, when his native town became honored with the possession of an
arm of St. Arnoul, the inhabitants, at first doubting the genuineness
of the precious relic, cast it into the flames; when it vindicated its
sanctity, not only by being fireproof, but also by leaping briskly away
from the coals, testimony which was held to be incontrovertible.[996]
The historian of the monastery of Andres informs us that when in 1084
the long-lost remains of the holy virgin Rotruda were miraculously
found, and Baldwin I., Count of Guisnes, desired to take the sacred
treasure to his town of Guisnes, it refused to be removed until
he proposed to place it on a wagon and allow a team of oxen to be
divinely guided to the spot where the saint desired to rest. This was
accordingly done, and the oxen carried the relics to a little chapel
dedicated to St. Medard, where steps were immediately taken to found
an abbey. The Seigneur of Andres, however, Baldwin Bochard, on whose
lands the chapel lay, foreseeing that a powerful monastery would be
a troublesome neighbor, and being an irreligious man, circulated
defamatory libels impugning the authenticity of the relics, and finally
persuaded Count Baldwin to have them tested by the ordeal of fire.
This was accordingly done, and the genuineness of the holy remains
was proved to the satisfaction of all. Bochard and his descendants
continued inveterately hostile to St. Rotruda and her monks, but all,
without exception, were compelled, upon their death-beds, to contribute
a portion of their substance to her honor.[997] The custom continued
even until the sixteenth century was well advanced. In the Jeronymite
monastery of Valdebran in Catalonia, a piece of the true cross bears
inscription that its genuineness was tested with fire by Archbishop
Miralles on October 2, 1530.[998]
The persistency of popular belief in this method of ascertaining guilt
or innocence is seen as recently as 1811, when a Neapolitan noble,
suspecting the chastity of his daughter, exposed her to the ordeal of
fire, from which she barely escaped with her life.[999]